In Europe ford, BMW and GM have or will launch three cylinder engines as part of getting down to the Eu CO2 goal of 95gms/km by 2020.

As mentioned by Ford Euro 6 is making small deisels very expensive so somewhere between 1.5 and 2 litres there is an effective cross over point betwen deisel and petrol.

500c seems to be a " magic" cylnder size ( see also the Fiat twin air) so 3 cylinder and lots of boost is the new trend.

What wil be interesting is to see if the new BMW 3 cylinder is truly superior to the Ford and GM equivalents in the same way as BMW's diesel technology has pulled ahead of its rivals over the last 10 years

When BL first got seriously keen on fuel consumption in 1973 they did a study on cylinder size, and came up with around 400 cc per cylinder as the optimum (memory says 412). That of course was in the days of carbs, naturally aspirated, leanish mixtures, and so on.

I'm getting the 2 litre Ecoboost in a Falcon in February which should be fun. I've currently got a Mondeo 2 litre diesel turbo with a very non seamless dual clutch 6 speed auto. That averages about 6.5 l /100km, 36 mpUSg, it'll be interesting to see how the Falcon stacks up.

I believe this Ford engine block (and head?) is cast iron. Why is this? Is it just Ford being ultra conservative?

As the story states, the block is iron.

The reasoning has been explained to me as a sort of convergence of cost and NVH. The head is aluminum, however. One of its interesting features is the integral exhaust manifold. The turbo is a cute little thing about the size of a coffee cup.

I'm getting the 2 litre Ecoboost in a Falcon in February which should be fun.

The Falcon is an interesting case where the Ecoboost version represents a 50% downsize. This makes sense considering weight saings etc. Strangely the Focus and others are more like a 25% downsize - I guess the 2 litre has a higher specific output than the 4 litre six but still - perhaps a 1.2 or 1.0 would work?

Edit. Just read the article and see that the three cylinder is a 1.0. Wonder if it could be squeezed a little further to power the Focus.

The Ford Focus Ecoboost 1.0L was introduced in the spring in Europe and accounts for about 25 percent of the mix, reportedly. There are no current plans to bring it to the USA. Word is AU will get it in late 2013.

AU will also get the three-cylinder 1.0L Ecoboost in the India-made baby SUV...whatitsname...EcoSport.

Getting back to the engine itself... a coupe of interesting features are the variable-displacement oil pump and the two-circuit cooling systems with separate pumps for the block and head. I look forward to passing on more info as it is released.

AU will also get the three-cylinder 1.0L Ecoboost in the India-made baby SUV...whatitsname...EcoSport.

Getting back to the engine itself... a coupe of interesting features are the variable-displacement oil pump and the two-circuit cooling systems with separate pumps for the block and head. I look forward to passing on more info as it is released.

Somthing to appreciate.

This unit has more than double the specific power that the famous R.R. Griffon. Both Pressure Charged units

The Eco Boost is designed for 150,000 mile life, not at 100% duty cycle maybe, but remarkable nevertheless.

If anyone has any doubts about the performance claims I recommend seeking out Fifth Gears test of the car, they (Tiff Needell, Jason Plato etc) were very impressed by the 1.0L ecoboost, it beat the old Ford Focus 1.6L NA engine in a drag race quite easily.

On the aluminium vs iron block thing, my old boss was the designer of the Falcon i6 block that is still being used. They had the option of using either material, and we cast both at the casting plant, so there were no huge reasons to go one or the other other than what would be the best comprmise. He said that at the time a thin wall CI block weighed a little more than an aluminium one, but there wasn't much in it, and CI has some nice properties for a block. Bear in mind that we'd have had stiffness targets for the engine then (and now), and it starts to make more sense. With modern production engine desin you might think it is all efficiency and weight, but NVH is also a massive influence on the engine design, as it is much cheaper to cure noise problems at source than to try and make an existing noisy engine quiet. It's not unusual to see a hundred dollars of bodges on an old engine eg sump rail to bellhousing braces, pencil braces for accessories, weird designs for rocker covers and timing chain covers that have to fit around existing features, and so on. Making a noisy engine quiet on the dyno is great fun, productionising the resulting mess is difficult.

On the aluminium vs iron block thing, my old boss was the designer of the Falcon i6 block that is still being used. They had the option of using either material, and we cast both at the casting plant, so there were no huge reasons to go one or the other other than what would be the best comprmise. He said that at the time a thin wall CI block weighed a little more than an aluminium one, but there wasn't much in it, and CI has some nice properties for a block. Bear in mind that we'd have had stiffness targets for the engine then (and now), and it starts to make more sense. With modern production engine desin you might think it is all efficiency and weight, but NVH is also a massive influence on the engine design, as it is much cheaper to cure noise problems at source than to try and make an existing noisy engine quiet. It's not unusual to see a hundred dollars of bodges on an old engine eg sump rail to bellhousing braces, pencil braces for accessories, weird designs for rocker covers and timing chain covers that have to fit around existing features, and so on. Making a noisy engine quiet on the dyno is great fun, productionising the resulting mess is difficult.

I have to admit being a big fan of the big Oz Ford straight sixes - both the single and twin -cam versions. I think they are a much better engine than any other comparable straight six - including Jaguar (of which I have owned a few), Mercedes etc. The thought of replacing the big six with a tiny 3-cylinder turbo engine just seems ludicrous to me - even if it did develop the same power.

I am also an unashamed fan of the Helical Cam and their associated gadgets. Surely a big Ford six making use of the idle and part-throttle fuel savings of LIVC (which the Helical cam has amply demonstrated) would probably allow the big six to have quite an acceptable fuel economy (I have no idea how it would compare to the tiny engine in economy). In my experience typically the Ford sixes typically run at tiny throttle openings around town - even when the traffic is moving freely. I would not be surprised if a helical cam/LIVC Ford six could be as much as 20 to 30% more fuel efficient around town than the standard engine.

This is not to belittle the tiny turbo engine - it would be great in a Mini-sized car - but not in a bloody great lumbering Falcon.

That being exactly why I'm leasing one, as I am keen to see what the day to day experience is like. Actually the 2 litre diesel in the porky pig mondeo is 120 kW and 1505 kg, the ecoboost falcon is 179 kW and 1648 kg. The 4.0 Falcon is 1710 kg and 195 kW. So if I'm getting 6.8 l/100 in the mondeo I should get 6.8*1.1*1.1 (mass and diesel), =8.2 l/100 km from the Falcon. We'll see...

The iron block is very short and rigid, that much stiffer than a four or six of the same general design. The bare block weighs 23 kg and the entire engine weighs 97 kg dressed, more than light enough for anything they are likely to put it in. Yes it could be lighter but to what end?

EDIT: The short, stiff block goes with the light, stiff, stubby crankshaft, which is externally balanced at the flywheel and front damper -- dodging the need for a balance shaft and its added friction and mass.

That being exactly why I'm leasing one, as I am keen to see what the day to day experience is like. Actually the 2 litre diesel in the porky pig mondeo is 120 kW and 1505 kg, the ecoboost falcon is 179 kW and 1648 kg. The 4.0 Falcon is 1710 kg and 195 kW. So if I'm getting 6.8 l/100 in the mondeo I should get 6.8*1.1*1.1 (mass and diesel), =8.2 l/100 km from the Falcon. We'll see...

You mean a system of measurement that mirrors our "normal" system of day-to-day mathematics (base 10)? Yes - total crap. Why have something obvious like 1000 grams in a kilogram when you can have 291.6 pennyweight in a pound, 14 pounds in a stone and 32.17 pounds in a slug - that's much more fun. Separates the men from the boys.

Why have 1 liter of water weigh 1 kilogram and occupy 1000 cubic centimeters (or 1000 milliliters) and 1000 cubic litres in a cubic meter when you could have 1.108 tablespoons in a cubic inch and 1728 cubic inches in a cubic foot (which is also 7.48 or 6.23 gallons depending on which face is on your money).

You mean a system of measurement that mirrors our "normal" system of day-to-day mathematics (base 10)? Yes - total crap. Why have something obvious like 1000 grams in a kilogram when you can have 291.6 pennyweight in a pound, 14 pounds in a stone and 32.17 pounds in a slug - that's much more fun. Separates the men from the boys.

Why have 1 liter of water weigh 1 kilogram and occupy 1000 cubic centimeters (or 1000 milliliters) and 1000 cubic litres in a cubic meter when you could have 1.108 tablespoons in a cubic inch and 1728 cubic inches in a cubic foot (which is also 7.48 or 6.23 gallons depending on which face is on your money).

Yes...metric. Utter illogical crap.

And yet these seemingly crazy traditional systems of measure remain popular throughout most of the world, especially in retail commerce, and in defiance of all government and industry efforts to replace them. These systems were intuitive to the people who invented them and they remain intuitive to the people who use them today.

Familiarity is powerful, and having grown up with miles per gallon, that is how I think, and nothing else makes much sense. It isn't even a metric v Imperial problem for me, I could live with kilometres per litre, but I still need to know how far I can travel per gallon or litre, rather than how much fuel I will use to travel an unnaturally precise distance. My tank is half full, I can make it home.

It helps when people know what they are talking about - many seem not to. I was once asked to exhibit in a nearby town, and when I asked how much space I would have I was told it was 90 metres square. Visualising my paltry collection of framed illustrations petering out half way along one wall, I said, didn't she mean 90 square metres? "No", came the firm reply, "It's 90 metres square!" Fortunately, it wasn't.

You mean a system of measurement that mirrors our "normal" system of day-to-day mathematics (base 10)? Yes - total crap. Why have something obvious like 1000 grams in a kilogram when you can have 291.6 pennyweight in a pound, 14 pounds in a stone and 32.17 pounds in a slug - that's much more fun. Separates the men from the boys.

Why have 1 liter of water weigh 1 kilogram and occupy 1000 cubic centimeters (or 1000 milliliters) and 1000 cubic litres in a cubic meter when you could have 1.108 tablespoons in a cubic inch and 1728 cubic inches in a cubic foot (which is also 7.48 or 6.23 gallons depending on which face is on your money).

Yes...metric. Utter illogical crap.

The problem is that base 10 isn't really an optimal choice, because only 2 and 5 can divide evenly into it. Either some power of 2, or an abundant number like 12, are better. It's way too late to do anything about it when it comes to our number system, but that explains why Imperial measures are still popular.

Not sure I agree but the abundance of base 10 calcs made all day long may well be colouring my perception. I'm not sure how a pound is any more intuitive than kilogram or a pint over a liter. They're all only familiar (or unfamiliar) means of quantifying something. I understand pounds and kilograms within the scope that I use them - human mass, weights in the gym, my bikes. I can't tell you how many portions of a pound or pennyweight the reciprocating mass was in my engine build because all the weights are in grams including pistons, but cylinder and valve sizes in inches. I still find it easier to think in "thou" and ten-thousandths" of an inch than hundreds or thousandths of a millimeter, but the mechanics I hired that had apprenticed and trained in sport-bike shops couldn't get their head around my inch-based dials or mics and had to stick with using their metric tools. Same country, same school system, different exposures.

Canada is in what may be a unique position (I don't know about the vagaries of measurement systems in other countries I'm afraid). My parents were schooled and worked entirely in imperial units. The metric system was adopted around the time I was born so at home we spoke of inches, feet and pounds, the American-based drag racing that captured all of my attention spoke in miles per hour, cubic inches and horsepower (imagine my confusion the first time I looked at a Caterpillar engine chart and it was all kilowatts) while at school it was entirely metric - millimeters, liters and kilograms. The town I grew up in had both mile per hour and km/h signs (okay, it had one mph sign that I always intended to steal but someone eventually beat me to it).

Thinking about Dmitriy's assertion again, I have to disagree. Working in base 10 is dead simple - weights and measures are simply a small handful of base units with latin prefixs denoting sub units (except in the case of the kilogram - it's the base unit of mass). How many meters in a kilometer? 1000. How many grams in a kilogram? 1000. How many milliliters in a liter? 1000. Convert to larger or smaller units? Just move the decimal over. How many meters in 7.5625 kilometers? 7,562.5. How many feet in 7 and 9/16 miles? (I have no idea why you'd want to know that). How many hands would that be? Yards? Chains?

Yup, we discussed this in another thread recently. A number system based in a power of 2 would be optimal, not only for us, but for computers. But as you noted, we are all accustomed to a base-10 system, which is EXACTLY why the metric system is far more intuitive if, like me, you have had the opportunity to work in both systems.

I also agree we won't change our number system at this point. The Babylonians who used base-60 (which seems nice, divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6) and the Mayans who used base-20 are all dead. If they had only used base-16, they might still be alive ...

The problem is that base 10 isn't really an optimal choice, because only 2 and 5 can divide evenly into it. Either some power of 2, or an abundant number like 12, are better. It's way too late to do anything about it when it comes to our number system, but that explains why Imperial measures are still popular.

There are pros and cons to metric and imperial but there seem to be very few impartial people. Anything to do with what that person was taught per chance? Even though I grew up with some entrenched imperial uses (miles, pints) I'd happily go all metric. At school we were taught to measure things in mm, cm and metres which I'm eternally grateful for. It might make sense before we had calculators or computers to measure things based on, literally, what was to hand but metric decimalisation makes things so much easier when you are doing complex things like designing or calculations. I always thought it was funny how inches are divided into 8ths, 16ths etc down to 64ths then when fine tolerance engineering was needed the imperial system falls on it's arse and it get's assimilated into hundreds and thousandths of an inch and not 128ths or 512ths or 1024ths etc

There are pros and cons to metric and imperial but there seem to be very few impartial people. Anything to do with what that person was taught per chance? Even though I grew up with some entrenched imperial uses (miles, pints) I'd happily go all metric. At school we were taught to measure things in mm, cm and metres which I'm eternally grateful for. It might make sense before we had calculators or computers to measure things based on, literally, what was to hand but metric decimalisation makes things so much easier when you are doing complex things like designing or calculations. I always thought it was funny how inches are divided into 8ths, 16ths etc down to 64ths then when fine tolerance engineering was needed the imperial system falls on it's arse and it get's assimilated into hundreds and thousandths of an inch and not 128ths or 512ths or 1024ths etc

I've been brought up in the metric system, and in fact any measuring system that was not metric was taught to be archaic to us. However, after living in US for almost two decades, metric system just seems cold and soulless to me. I perfectly understand how it's a much better system to use, but there is still something unpleasant about it.

Miles. OK. Miles per hour - makes sense. Nautical miles and knots? Why? Just the Senior Service pulling rank, and the RAF joining in? I bet that causes confusion when the Army is involved in a joint action.

Miles. OK. Miles per hour - makes sense. Nautical miles and knots? Why? Just the Senior Service pulling rank, and the RAF joining in? I bet that causes confusion when the Army is involved in a joint action.

I think nautical miles/knots etc. are used because they fit in neatly with degrees/minutes/seconds (or something or other) on the earth's surface.

I looked it up in Wiki - one nautical mile is one minute of arc on the earth's surface.